


Flip

by Newtavore



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Black Romance, Character Study, M/M, Red Romance, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-20 00:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3629148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtavore/pseuds/Newtavore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>EriKri two ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red

 

He’s like Kar, but he isn’t.

 

He’s much nicer, for one thing, though he has the unfortunate tendency to never fucking shut up. He and Kar both talk non stop, but his voice is much calmer, much smoother, with no screamed profanity or snarled invectives to grind the smooth tone to hoarse muttering. He speaks at double the volume, but you don’t mind too much. Sometimes, it’s nice knowing that someone is there, with you, even if all they ever talk about are issues of a time and place that are irrelevant, made obsolete by time and destruction.

 

He looks similar, but he’s softer all over, curves instead of soft edges, curls instead of jagged spikes. His flesh gives under your hands, yielding till your fingers curl around delicate bone, breakable as bird’s wings, and you have to be careful with him because he’s different from you, irresilient and full figured in ways you and Kar and others never had enough food to accomplish, ways that you’d never been able to achieve because of nights spend hunting and days spent hiding. His hair is smooth as silk when you run your fingers through it, so unlike his dancestor’s matted, unruly mop, and when it catches the light in just the right way it shines.

 

The red of his sweater matches the flush of his cheeks when you kiss him, and his squeak of indignation at being interrupted is the chasm of difference between them. Where he clings to you, twines his fingers in your shirt and pulls you closer despite all verbal protests, Kar would have punched you in the face and spit in disgust. Where he responds, however clumsily, hesitantly, Kar would have bitten off your tongue and probably strangled you with it. They are so similar, but worlds different, and its that difference that allows you to have the happiness you have, with him.

 

You’ve never had sex with him. He’s never expressed any interest in pailing with you, and is adamant at keeping his vows, but you don’t mind all that much. It’s just nice, having someone to hold, to love, and to hold and love you in return, even if that love never turns more physical. You care about him more for what he does to you, for you; the way he brushes your hair, the way he kisses you, the way he whispers into your ear until you fall asleep, the way he talks you through nightmares and flashbacks and all sorts of horrid things and never questions you past what you are willing to answer. The way he lets you hold him, hands on his wide hips, pressed chest to chest, the softness of his skin against yours, the remembered beat of his heart a soothing rhythm you sway to when everything’s too much and you just can’t anymore.

 

The way he sputters and struggles but never actually pulls away, the way he lets you curl around him and pet his hair and use him as a personal heater when the days are cold and you feel lost in the voices of angels, the way he shyly, tentatively whispers _I love you_.

 

The way he lets you whisper it back.

 

He’s everything you could ever want and more, and your chest aches whenever he’s near you. You died for love, died for your own stupidity, but what you thought you felt for Kar, what you thought you felt for Sol, for Fef, it is nothing compared to what you feel for him. Puppy love, a child’s crush, simple and shallow, but this is _real,_ the kind of real that makes everything else seem like a cheap imitation in comparison. Your very being aches with your feelings for him, radiating out from your chest like the pain from a gunshot wound _[except more pleasant, more welcome, more more more]_ and every time you see him smile, hear him laugh, listen to him talk and ramble and rave with such passion about things he finds desperately important, you fall deeper into this mire of feelings.

 

It’s like getting stuck in an undertow, caught in a rip tide and dragged out to sea, getting pulled underwater by a whirlpool of fucking emotions and it hurts, but it hurts in such a good way that you never want it to stop.

 

You never want to stop loving him, and you never want him to stop loving you back.

 

 


	2. Black

He’s like Kar, but he isn’t.

 

You think that’s what gets you, at first. Kar was so important to you, so special to you, but then this… this thing, this soft, fleshy little thing, barely worthy of being called a troll, shows up and has the audacity to look almost exactly like him. And you thought it was him, you thought- well, you thought a lot of things but then he’d opened his mouth and started talking and that was the end of that.

 

You just couldn’t stay away, though.

 

Maybe it was because he looked so much like Kar, maybe it was because he was just so fucking different from everything and everyone you’d known _[a breath of fresh air, a gulp of clean water, someone who wouldn’t try to murder you because of your stupid, stupid mistakes]_ maybe it was just because he infuriated you so fucking much, but you couldn’t leave well enough alone. You couldn’t leave _him_ alone.

 

Maybe you just didn’t want to be alone.

 

As you hung around him, though, you started noticing the differences, and by the gods, were there differences. You can only blame your cracked, smudged glasses for mistaking the two of them, now, because on second glance, they hardly looked alike. Where Kar was hard, tough, small and compact and almost unhealthily thin, covered in wiry muscle and obviously fully capable of taking down any thread to his person, he’s tall, willowy, soft. He’s all curves, no hard angles, no sharp points to him except his tongue and his mind. He’s full figured, with wide hips and a soft stomach and it infuriates you because it’s a _lie_. He’s never had to hunt for food in his life, you bet, never had to take the life of another creature or lose his, and his softness infuriates you because it should mean he’s capable of supporting himself, such a strong hunter he can afford to go soft but it’s a lie and you feel inadequate and almost self conscious of your own hard corners and knobby limbs.

 

None of you ever looked like that, none of you ever had enough food to gain that heavy limbed softness, and you hate that he never had to work for it like you so desperately tried to do. His teeth are blunt and ineffectual, his claws are _filed down,_ of all things, and his very essence screams cullbait, screams coddled, and it makes you so fucking _angry_.

 

He wears his blood color like it’s a badge of pride, his sweater dyed bright, aberrant red, and Kar would have never done something so stupid.  When you speak down to him, as he so deserves, he speaks up to you like _you’re_ the mutant, like there’s something wrong with you, like you have something to hide and it makes you want to rip the stupid thing off him and set it on fire. Sometimes, you want to set him on fire along with it.

 

His hair, so different from Kar’s unruly, matted mop, is soft and curled, clean and shiny and free of tangles and you’re jealous of that too because it takes so much effort to keep your hair free of knots that it almost isn’t worth it _[and you are aware that this is, perhaps, a petty and foolish reason to dislike someone, but you are dead and you can be as petty as you fucking want.]_

 

Where you… you might have loved Kar, if circumstances had been different, if everything had been different, Kankri… Kankri, you can safely say you hate. Every aspect of him makes you want to bash him over the head and kiss him at the same time, and it confuses you, which makes you even more frustrated, and the infuriating little bastard knows it, you can tell.

 

For all his indignant squeaking when you haul him in for kisses, he responds to you as violently as you respond to him, nipping at your lips with useless teeth and digging his dull nails into your chest. He arches against you when you wrap your hands around his hips, his flesh giving until your fingers hit delicate bone, weak as bird wings, and when you put just enough pressure to bruise but no more, he savages your tongue with his _stupid fucking teeth_ and you can feel the pounding of his heart against your chest.

 

You never go further than this, you never pail because he refuses to let go of a vow he made to a dead time and a deader culture, but you can’t say you mind, too much; this, what you have, it’s enough, sometimes it’s even too much. You’re not used to feeling so deeply, not used to the way the emotions in your chest drag you around like a puppet, because everything you’d felt before, every things else, it was child’s play compared to this, silly wriggler crushes and barkbeast love, grub stuff. This is real, _visceral_ in a way that scares you because as much as you hate him, you love him in equal measure.

 

You love the way he pisses you off, you love the way he talks about things he knows will make you angry, you love the way he does things just to upset you, teasing, faking innocence and ignorance when you confront him. You love the way he bites you with his stupid, rounded little teeth, and the way he is so weak compared to you yet still somehow a challenge, still a match in wit and reason. You love how he can talk circles around you yet still somehow manage to educate you about things you actually consider interesting, and you love the way he glares, the way he chides you in his prissy, smooth, cultured voice about how you’re _a brute who needs to focus on the academic and educational portions of history, not just the military exploits of other civilizations, goodness, Eridan_.

 

You love the way he matches you, if not in physical strength then in intelligence. You love the way you have to be careful with him, because he's like fire, like a candle, wrath and fury barely contained but so easily snuffed out. You love the way he struggles against you, pretending he doesn't want anything to do with you, pretending he's outraged by your _absolutely scandalous attitude, Eridan I cannot believe you would say such things,_ and you love the way you know and he knows he's full of shit. You love the way he goads you, challenges you, the way he's perfect for you, the way he equals you.

 

You love the way you hate him.

 


End file.
